‘Shame on him. Shame on you.’ Kineas flipped the cloak open over the broad back of the charger, who shied a little when he saw the flapping cloak in the corner of his black eye. Then Kineas folded it, rolled it tight and hard, and buckled it to the high-backed Sakje saddle.
‘In the infantry, we just wear the damn things,’ Philokles said.
‘Tie it like this, behind your saddle and you have something to lean your ass on when you’re tired.’ Kineas was looking at the Sakje saddle that Philokles had acquired. It had a much higher back than any Greek tack. Most Greeks were content with a blanket. He remounted and gathered his reins.
‘Nice whip,’ Philokles said. ‘That didn’t come from the king.’ He flashed a wicked smile.
‘Philokles,’ Kineas said, putting his hand on the Spartan’s rein.
The king rode up on his other side and interrupted him. ‘We’re ready if you are,’ he said curtly.
‘In what order would you like us to ride?’ Kineas looked at his own disciplined Greeks and the milling Sakje nobles. They were showing off for women, or men, performing curvets and rearing their horses. Two were already off, having a race, and the snow erupted from under their hooves in the early sun.
The young king shrugged. ‘I thought that I would send out a pair in front, like any decent commander. And then, since this is a peaceful mission, I thought you and I could ride abreast, perhaps with this talkative Spartan for company. I shall practise my Greek, Philokles shall learn more of my land, and I can teach you how to use the Sakje whip.’ The king indicated the whip in Kineas’s hand. ‘That looks familiar to me,’ he said with Greek sarcasm.
‘At your command, sir,’ Kineas said. He raised his hand.
‘Forward,’ said the king in Greek, and then: ‘ Fera! ’
10
The sickness was almost gone from his body, praise to the deadly archer Apollo for passing him by and to Kam Baqca for saving him — and the coughs scarcely troubled him. The journey back to the city was pleasant despite the chill and the deep snow on the plains, because the king’s men were good companions, and because his Olbian boys were becoming something like soldiers. For two days, Kineas had nothing to worry about. The king’s men chose camps and erected felt tents from the two heavy wagons that carried all of the party’s baggage. Kineas rode and talked, and in brief intervals alone, thought of Srayanka. Whatever coldness was between him and the king, it disappeared soon after they left the camp.
The holiday ended forty stades from Olbia.
‘We spotted a patrol!’ young Kyros shouted, as soon as he was close enough to be heard. He slowed his horse, sweeping in a wide arc in front of the king, and gave a belated salute.
Kineas waited with apparent indifference until the young man brought his horse to a stand in front of them.
‘Four men, all well mounted. Ataelus says they are your men from the city.’ Kyros looked a trifle downcast. ‘I didn’t see them. Ataelus did. He’s watching them.’
Kineas turned to the king. ‘If Ataelus saw them, they’ll have seen him and they’ll be with us shortly.’ Even as he spoke, two riders crested the next ridge and began a rapid descent.
Kineas knew Niceas by the set of his shoulders and the way he rode, even on the horizon of a snowy plain, and as soon as he spotted his hyperetes cantering down the ridge towards the Sakje king’s party, he began to worry.
‘That man rides well,’ said the king at his side.
‘He’s been in the saddle all his life,’ Kineas said. He gave a cough.
‘To keep watch on the roads in winter is no easy task,’ the king said. He tugged his beard thoughtfully.
Niceas rode up at a fast trot, and saluted. ‘Hipparch, I greet you,’ he said formally.
Kineas returned his salute and then embraced him. ‘You are better,’ he said.
Niceas smiled. ‘By the grace of all the gods, and despite the meddling of Diodorus with various potions, I’m a new man.’ Then he seemed to recollect the company he was in. ‘Pardon, sir.’
Kineas, used to the rampant informalities of the Sakje, had to make himself think like a Greek. ‘The King of the Sakje — my friend and hyperetes, Niceas. Like me, an Athenian.’
The king held out his right hand, and Niceas took it. ‘I’m honoured, Great King.’
‘I’m not a great king,’ Satrax said, ‘I am king of the Assagatje.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I do intend to be a great king, in time.’
Niceas looked back and forth between his commander and the barbarian king. Kineas read his hesitancy and motioned to the king with his whip, already a part of him. ‘Niceas has private news for me, O King. May I have your permission to ride aside with him for a little space?’
Satrax waved his riding whip in return. It was a Sakje habit — they talked with their whips. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.
‘I like him,’ said Niceas as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘Nothing Persian about him. But Ares’ frozen balls, he’s young.’
‘Not as young as he looks. What in Hades brought you out to freeze your hairy ass in the snow?’ Kineas was taking both of them out of the column at a good standing trot, and his words were shaken by the motion of the horse.
Niceas was silent until they both reined in at the top of a low ridge. Below them the king’s two heavy wagons toiled along, drawn by a double yoke of oxen. ‘You were supposed to be back in three days — a week at longest.’ He looked around. ‘The assembly didn’t accept the archon’s taxes. Now there’s trouble. Nothing solid — yet. But when you didn’t show, people started to talk. Trouble that will be solved the hour you ride in the gate. A lot of rich fathers are missing their sons — led by Cleomenes. So Diodorus and I decided we’d send out patrols to look for you. That was three days back.’ Niceas looked like a man ridding himself of the weight of the world. ‘Why are you so late? There’s men in the city saying you were killed by the barbarians. And others saying the archon won’t let you bring back the boys until the taxes are voted.’
‘What men?’ asked Kineas. ‘Who said so?’
‘Coenus was off to find that out when I took the patrol out.’ Niceas shrugged. ‘Even money says it’s the archon.’
‘Did you have his permission to look for me?’ Kineas waved to get the king’s attention.
‘Somehow, that slipped my mind.’ Niceas pantomimed repentance.
Kineas sighed. He had enjoyed days on the plains without any burden of command beyond his handful of promising boys. He felt as if all of Niceas’s burdens had shifted squarely on to his own shoulders. He kicked his heels and his sturdy pony, one of the king’s gifts, trotted back down the hill towards the column.
‘How are the rest?’ Kineas asked.
‘Pretty fair. Bored. This patrol had everyone volunteering. Diodorus put everything off limits except the gymnasium and the hippodrome until your return.’ Niceas chuckled. ‘We’ve acquired some whores. Diodorus bought the services of a hetaera.’
Kineas congratulated Diodorus in his mind. ‘Where’d they come from?’ he asked. They were approaching the king and Marthax, who were laughing with Ajax and Eumenes.
Niceas glanced away. ‘Oh — here and there, I guess,’ he said evasively.
Kineas made a note to himself to find out, and then saluted the king. ‘O King — I am required in the city.’ Ajax made room, and Kineas brought his horse alongside the king’s.
Satrax nodded. ‘Then let us go faster,’ he said, and set his horse to a gallop. Every Sakje in the party did the same, and the Greeks had to scramble to keep up.
For the first time, Kineas saw the full measure of the Sakje as horsemen. They galloped their horses for an hour, halted, and every man switched horses, and they were off again. It was a pace that would have broken a troop of Greek cavalry in two hours, but with their herd of remounts and their unflagging energy, the Sakje rode at a gallop for three hours, pausing once to drink unwatered wine and piss in the snow. They left their wagons and half their party to come along at the pace of the oxen. Before the sun was three fists from the horizon, the whole party was passing over the city’s boundary ditch and through the outer fields of the Greek and Sindi farmers.